FROM EDN EUROPE: Set-top-box chips improve ease-of-use
By Graham Prophet -- EDN, February 2, 2006
Two chipsets for set-top-box designs will provide high-quality signal streams and improve user experience with more intuitive access to advanced features, according to manufacturers Philips Semiconductors. STB22x is a family of STB platforms that combines reference hardware designs with third-party software and a full support package, to allow OEMs to design and produce cable, satellite and digital terrestrial boxes in the minimum possible time. The platform, at introduction, supports standard-definition personal-video-recorder features, dual-input/dual-output MPEG 2 and 4 data streams and integrates USB 2.0 OTG. Later this year, Philips will extend it to include a high-definition source decoder for H.264 and WM9 HD streams.
Also new from Philips for the consumer market are two Nexperia semiconductor solutions for high-definition LCD television designs. The first of these, the TV810, is an analogue/digital hybrid reference design that combines rich digital content with high-quality TV display. It includes multi-format audio/video decoding and rendering, and designers can use it in any analogue or digital set that employs a matrix display. The Nexperia PNX 1500 processor on which Philips builds the solution implements media processing, network connectivity and display enhancement algorithms on a single chip. The second element of Philips's offering is for mid- to high-end televisions and implements image scaling while integrating motion-compensated de-interlacing with HD cancellation of "movie judder" artifacts. It will, Philips says, increase the clarity of fast-moving HD images, especially those that originate from 24 fps film sources. The chip, the PNX 5050, also includes a suite of media-processing features such as JPEG browsing ("slide show") and MP3 decode. The TV810 carries a price tag of $63—the PNX5050 will be under $20.
Philips Semiconductors, www.semiconductors.philips.com
